As more “in-towners” make their way out of the Tristate area, new arrivals all ask the same question: “What, no Hatzalah?”

Photos: Hatzalah

As more “in-towners” make their way out of the Tristate area, new arrivals all ask the same question: “What, no Hatzalah?” When emergency response-time is a question of seconds, more and more out-of-town communities, even those with modest Jewish populations and who’ve always relied on 911, have been upgrading their infrastructures to include that quintessential rapid response team, whose international motto is “90 seconds or less”

Night Seder

in the Philadelphia Community Kollel in Lower Merion, a small suburb of west Philadelphia, started out as usual on a December evening in 2022. The room pulsed with energy as avreichim studied the Gemara Shabbos with their local chavrusas. In the general din, no one noticed one man rise from his spot — until he keeled over, unconscious. The silence stretched for a heartbeat too long, and then the room of shocked bystanders exploded in chaos.

Rabbi Moshe Starkman, from Bala Cynwyd, who was there with his chavrusa, remembers the ensuing panic.

“No one had emergency training, aside from a lifeguard. We didn’t know what to do,” he says.

Someone started to perform CPR — which was unnecessary since the patient had a pulse.

If this had taken place in one of the larger Jewish population centers, the first step would be obvious — call Hatzalah. But the community, colloquially referred to as Main Line, didn’t have Hatzalah. So someone called 911, and when the paramedics showed up, they duly administered care… 20 minutes after the call came in. Fortunately, the patient had a full recovery, but Rabbi Starkman found himself thinking, We can do better.

“It’s not that we never thought about opening a Hatzalah branch,” explains Rabbi Starkman, the CEO of the software development firm Startech Partners and the director of the Main Line Hatzalah branch.

In fact, Tzvi Rudin, a pillar of the Southwestern Philadelphia community and Yeshiva of Philadelphia’s chef, had been envisioning a local Hatzalah chapter for over a decade. But with a population of roughly 500 families, the community simply wasn’t large enough to staff or support a branch, and the concept never got off the ground. (While the Jewish community on the northeastern side of Philadelphia has an active Hatzalah branch, it’s a 45-minute drive from Lower Merion — too far in an emergency.)

However, as with most things, forming a Hatzalah branch boils down to timing. As more in-towners migrated to Philadelphia post-Covid, Main Line has doubled in frum population to 1,000 families, finally at the point where planning could begin in earnest.

The Philadelphia community isn’t the only growing city launching a Hatzalah branch. In a trend that’s been evolving over the last five years, more and more out- of-town communities have been upgrading their infrastructures to include a local Hatzalah team. Bergen County, New Jersey, and Cleveland, Ohio, opened branches in September 2021 and January 2025 respectively, while Cincinnati, Ohio, and New Haven, Connecticut, are well into preparations for going live. Main Line, Pennsylvania, is aiming for a summer 2025 opening.

These communities are experiencing a population explosion as residents of the Tristate area disperse to smaller communities around the country in search of a more affordable lifestyle. Many of these new arrivals have introduced standard in-town features to their new communities, chief among them the necessity of a Hatzalah branch.